WATCH WHAT HAPPENS: You may have heard something Monday about a tech company making a watch of some sort. There were a few tweets about it. Yes, Apple unveiled a new smartwatch on Monday, hoping to create a new must-have category out of thin air like they did with the iPad a few years ago, despite legions of doubters, reports WSJ. Whether people want smartwatches remains to be seen. But will advertisers want to get on smartwatches? Do you even have to ask? If people do take to the Apple Watch in big numbers, retail brands will be ready to pounce with in store-pricing alerts and wrist-delivered coupons at the register, as well as ads targeted to people who use the watch for health tracking and communications. Are we sure we want this?

WATCH APPS: The new Apple Watch is also a new environment for mobile apps, and one with limited real estate. It’s going to serve as yet another platform major technology companies and Web publishers have to commit resources to while figuring out whether it’s worth their time to vie for one’s limited wrist attention. At launch, the new watch features Instagram, eBay, CNN, the New York Times, American Airlines and, perhaps surprisingly, the Chinese messaging app WeChat, reports WSJ. Will people consume articles on this device? How will publishers weave ads into these micro apps? Will people actually shop via watches? These are all open questions that won’t be answered until a few million people actually buy one of these things.

‘HBO NOW’ ON APPLE: An HBO standalone streaming service has been reported on for months, but Monday HBO announced that Apple TV (which had its price dropped from $99 to $69) will serve as as the first digital launch partner for the new HBO Now product, reports WSJ. If you are contemplating cutting the cord, it was hard not to start doing the math in your head: “Sling TV gets me ESPN, Netflix has movies and “House of Cards,” and now “Thrones” and “True Detective” for $14.99 a month? Hmm.” As media analyst Rich Greenfield wrote on Twitter, “If you’re a media exec today, you have to be wondering if #HBONOW is the crucial acorn that breaks the bundle.” Translation: cord cutting could go mainstream really fast, which is presumably not great news for ad-supported TV.

CNN’s DIGITAL DOCS: CNN’s television ratings are nothing to brag about. But in the digital world, CNN has long been a standout. And the company’s bet a year or so ago on Web video is paying off with big traffic growth and sponsors gravitating to original, documentary-style series. Besides that effort, CNN is using its bureaus to crank out more original video across the globe, reports CMO Today. What’s interesting there is that CNN is not only trying to quickly grab onto newsy moments with original clips, but also finding ways to use video content again and again. After all, the breakdown CNN produced on the differences between al Qaeda and ISIS is unfortunately going to be relevant again and again. Each time CNN re-posts content like that, it enjoys new traffic.